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‘No, he’s away. I just need to call him.’
‘You do that, darling.’ The policewoman stands up, walks away. Samantha hears her radio crackle, hears her talk into it, though not what she says.
She calls Peter. Jenny is sitting next to her. Samantha can’t remember her sitting down. ‘It’s all right,’ she’s saying. ‘We’re right here. We’re not going anywhere.’
Peter’s phone is off.
Samantha finds Jenny’s green eyes with hers. ‘It’s not going through,’ she says. ‘He’s probably at the conference by now.’
‘He’s away?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he say whereabouts he was going?’
She shakes her head. Peter was on the front step only this morning. He said he shouldn’t go. She told him he must. A conference, he said. That way he has of seeming to give the whole story. A net to catch the sense, let the truth run through. Samantha doesn’t like the look that just passed between Jenny and Aisha. Just because he cheated on them doesn’t mean …
‘Heisat a conference,’ she says. ‘I just forgot where he said, that’s all. He’s back tomorrow. I didn’t think to write it down. I didn’t think it mattered.’
Peter didn’t say where he was going. She calls him again. This time leaves a message.
‘Peter, it’s me. Emily is missing. Peter, she’s been taken.’ What little remains of her voice falters, cracks. ‘I’m with the police. You have to call me urgently. Urgently, Peter.’
She rings off.
Jenny and Aisha have stood up. They’re talking to the WPC. Seeing Samantha look up at them, they break apart.
‘I need you to give me Peter’s car reg if you can, love, all right?’ the policewoman says. ‘Then we’re going to take you home. Your friends are coming with us. We’ll stay with you until we see where we’re up to, all right? Do you think you can stand up for me?’
Twenty-Four
Outside, bright white cloud. She screws up her eyes against the glare. The others lead her to the police car. She ducks into the back seat, feels a hand warm on the top of her head. She is in the back seat, Jenny and Aisha either side of her. They are holding her hands again, as if she is a child. The car is moving. Richmond flashes by.
They hit the Odeon roundabout, head up the hill. She closes her eyes, feels every lurch and swing. The graunch of the handbrake. They are outside her house.
Someone has her satchel. The policewoman is unlocking her front door. Suzanne Lewis has been here, she thinks. She walked into my house and left her sick work on the table. She pretended to be shy. And now she has Emily, the one true thing, the only true thing, in Samantha’s life.
The WPC is beckoning her into her own house.
‘What’s your name again?’ Samantha asks. ‘I’m sorry, I’m a bit …’
‘That’s all right, darling. It’s Christine.’
‘Christine. Yes, of course. Thanks.’
It’s chilly in the hall. Freezing. She bursts into tears.
‘I can’t be here,’ she cries. ‘I can’t sit here and wait, I can’t. I have to find her. I have to do something.’
She tries to run out, but Christine and Jenny are holding her by the arms.
‘Let the police do their job,’ Jenny says softly. The two women guide her into the living room, ease her down onto the sofa. ‘I’ll put the heating on.’
‘It’s OK,’ Aisha says from the doorway. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘The timer’s in the—’ Samantha stops. Aisha and Jenny know where the timer is. They know this house. They have both slept here, eaten here, listened to music here. And the rest. With Peter.
Peter only asked her to live with him because he is afraid of growing old alone. That’s what Jenny said. He was dumped by two women just as he was nearing forty. This caused a crisis. Yes. It makes sudden and perfect sense. He met Samantha the next day. Samantha’s father had a wife and family and he threw it away for sex. Peter didn’t have a wife or a family. She, Samantha, is Peter’s family, his future, but she is also his crisis. Just as that silly schoolgirl was her father’s. Samantha is a thing. She is one of Peter’sthings: the vintage car, the retro music, the old-fashioned log fire. The young wife.
